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Final catch up after a busy post-vacation week. Today’s pieces cover 7/31 – 8/2/24.
- When my clock radio alarm went off bright and early Wednesday morning, the first voice I heard was my colleague Aaron Churchill talking about the Science of Reading on my local NPR station. How lovely! Here’s the online version of the story, which links to and discusses Aaron’s recent report on the topic while once again toeing the “most schools will be pretty much ready for the switch but it’s actually going to take a long time so let’s all be really patient with them” line. Which seems to be the only line we’ve got right now. (Statehouse News, 7/31/24)
- The elected members of Cleveland’s City Council got a presentation from the CEO of Cleveland Metropolitan School District this week, in which Warren Morgan made his pitch for their support of the district’s levy request in November. Not just their vote, mind you, but their active effort to pitch a yes vote to the citizens of their respective wards. He urged them all to “run and share with [their] constituencies” the good news he presented them about the state of CMSD. Almost everyone seemed to agree with the ask (minus one very blunt refusal to canvas), but I really don’t see how 21 percent math proficiency, 51 percent chronic absenteeism, and an ongoing aversion to closing any underutilized buildings represents a saleable product today. (Signal Cleveland, 7/31/24)
- Here’s a nice interview with Matthew Daniel, the new superintendent of Cincinnati’s Catholic schools. Among other things, he offers some interesting insights into the ways that expanded voucher eligibility in Ohio might allow the possibility of new Diocesan schools to arise if enough families want them. (Cincinnati Enquirer, 7/31/24)
- Meanwhile, however, the Editorial Board of the Akron Beacon Journal are going full voucher groucher in this editorial, slamming the expansion of EdChoice with everything they’ve got…including misstatements of how the program works, contempt for families who don’t want what Akron City Schools is selling, and even the moldering corpse of the fully irrelevant ECOT Boogieman. (Akron Beacon Journal, 8/2/24)
- In our last piece at the end of this long week, we learn that the good folks at I Know I Can—a non-profit aimed at helping Columbus City Schools students (and only them, I think; certainly all their advertised grants are for CCS kids only) apply for, get into, and persist through college—are traversing the city in a van this summer. They are finding and working with students and families at meeting places near to their homes and schools. It’s an awesome service, of course, but I wonder if they ever stopped to count all of the charter and private schools they passed by on their drive between the Columbus district buildings at which they actually stop to let folks aboard? Just askin’. (Columbus Dispatch, 7/31/24)
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